Brothers and Last Resorts
by Daydreamblvr6
Summary: Directly after killing Jessica, Damon ends up at the Gilbert residence.


Heya! My muse got all in a tizzy last night so I actually have three fics for you guys today (*plug* click my username-or whatever the heck it is we call them-for easy access *plug*).

Anyway, this one takes place _directly _after "The Descent." _Somebody _needed to be a brother to this kid (since Stefan didn't seem to be up to the job), and I nominated Jeremy.

I don't even own a share of CW stock.

Happy (hopefully) reading!

* * *

At the thud against his doorjamb, Jeremy turns from his desk. Damon, drunk if Jeremy knows anything, is leaning with his face down and covered by shadow. Surreptitiously, Jeremy glances down at his right hand, playing with the ring he finds there.

When he looks back up again, he can see the blood drip down Damon's chin, his face now upturned and illuminated. He curls his right hand into a fist.

Damon grunts and tries to step forward into Jeremy's room, but stumbles instead. Against every instinct he has, Jeremy stands up and hooks his shoulder under Damon's arm. "Damn switch," Damon snarls to himself. Jeremy thinks he wants to get as far away from that mouth as quickly as possible. He more or less drops Damon into a seated position on the bed and turns to go stand protectively in front of the bathroom door. Lightning quick, the vampire grabs his wrist and pulls him back onto the bed beside him. Jeremy stiffens, but knows better than to try to move away again. He's better acquainted than most with unstable Damon, and the the last thing he wants to do is provoke him.

Beneath the pungent smell of death on Damon's lips, wafts of some heavy-duty alcohol or other almost make Jeremy gag. Damon boozes harder than any hardcore partier Jeremy has ever been around. But this Jeremy has known, what he doesn't understand is the reason behind Damon's drunker-than-drunk status tonight, so he inquires. "What are you doing here?"

"You've lost people: Anna, Vicki," Damon answers, swaying a little as he sits, swinging an invisible decanter with an empty hand. Jeremy cringes. But then he gets it.

"I'm sorry about Rose."

_Wrong thing to say_, he thinks immediately afterward when Damon, in full vampire bloodlust mode, growls into his face, _"Don't say that name to me." _Just as quickly as it had come, his bloodlust drains away and he gives Jeremy back his personal space. As Jeremy recalculates his option for motion, Damon flops unceremoniously onto his back.

"The switch is _supposed _to work immediately," he moans softly, not really telling Jeremy or anybody. Pain seeps from his words into the room, landing heavy on Jeremy's shoulders. He recognizes this pain and he recognizes Damon's coping method from the patterns of blood oozing down his neck. _It's not gonna work_, he thinks toward the older man.

"Maybe," Damon sits up, "maybe just a little bit _more_…" Before the veins have encroached on Damon's humanity, Jeremy knows what's coming next. _Shit. _

Damon's fangs hit the same side of his neck as Katherine's had. But this vampire is almost immediately downed by the (higher and higher daily) level of vervain in Jeremy's blood.

"Dammit, Damon," Jeremy curses as he stands up to tower over the prone figure on the floor. He presses a hand to his neck, pulls it back, and then checks the area with his fingertips, finding only two distinct punctures as opposed to the shredded mess he'd expected. "What the hell am I gonna do with a stupidass, unconscious, feral vampire?"

After tiptoeing around to clean himself up, he shoves Damon up onto the bed, wondering how he's going to get him out the house his sister is currently sleeping in. Damon + Elena when Damon's already a wreck = big disaster for everyone. He doesn't want Elena to get hurt, and he knows Damon would never forgive himself for hurting her, switch or no switch. (He thinks that maybe signing up for the "protector" job might not have been his best idea, although, to his credit, he really didn't expect to be protecting _everyone_.)

He checks his neck again in the bathroom mirror. Calling Stefan to come get his brother is the best option. He'd take Damon to the boarding house himself except his car is blocked by Aunt Jenna's and who knows where her keys are. However, calling Stefan requires finding some way to hide both the sight and scent of his blood and cleaning Damon up. The former he's not too sure he _can _do, the latter he'd rather avoid at all costs.

Because he doesn't have another choice, he dampens a washcloth and approaches the head of the bed with his nose wrinkled. Luckily, Damon remains unconscious the entire time, even when removing the older blood becomes a bit of a task. Jeremy takes a moment to be impressed by the lack of blood on Damon's clothes and then tosses the washcloth out the window as far as he can throw. His neck has stopped bleeding—the punctures weren't deep—so he changes shirts, disposing of the bloody one the same way he had the washcloth and pulls a hoodie on with the hood up.

With a nervous glance at the vampire on his bed, Jeremy drives the tip of one of his dad's old pocketknives into the pad of his palm. Wincing, he tapes a little gauze to it and dials Stefan.

"Blood?" Stefan asks upon entering Jeremy's room, alarmed.

Holding out his bandaged hand, Jeremy replies. "Cut myself messin' with my dad's knife." He attempts to affect bashfulness, hoping that will make Stefan stop pursuing the topic.

Stefan relaxes and nods toward Damon. "What happened?"

"He walked in here and crashed. He's hammered."

Disappointedly, Stefan looks down at his brother. "I'm not surprised." He swings Damon up, holding him with his forearms, and walks with the limp figure to the doorway where he pauses. "Thank you, Jeremy."

Jeremy shrugs and watches the brothers disappear down the steps.


End file.
